Reading, listening to, and questioning America... from the southern Great Plains

Hey, kids: that's what lyin' gets ya

David Horsey, writing (and drawing) in the LA Times, concludes that having a willing and firm grasp on reality is helpful if you want to win a big election. The Dems did (have a firm grasp on reality); the Republicans did not. Daily and publicly in major media their candidates tried to fool all of the American voters all of the time. But they wound up fooling only themselves.

Here is what the facts turned out to be:

• Romney predominated
only among older white men; Obama won 55% of women, 93% of African
Americans, 71% of Latinos and 60% of voters ages 18 to 29.

• Rather than there being an enthusiasm gap, Obama pretty much replicated his winning 2008 coalition.

• The Obama campaign gurus in Chicago were not lying; they had the money, time and energy to get all their voters to the polls.

• The “enthusiasm” of the tea party and the religious right proved to be a detriment to the Republican cause. Their wacky candidates, including Richard Mourdock in Indiana and Todd Akin
in Missouri, were disasters and their demand for ideological purity
turned the GOP primaries into a clown show and their eventual nominee
into a pandering hypocrite.

• The Republicans’ silly scare
stories about voter fraud were used to justify restrictions on voting
that black Americans, in particular, perceived as a threat to their
hard-won right to vote. As a result, those folks were willing to stand
in long lines for hour after hour in states such as Ohio and Florida so
that their voices could be heard. And what they said was “four more
years for Barack Obama.”

Remember that in 2014 and 2016. Pin Horsey's illustration up on your fridge. Things probably won't change that much in two to four years.

It's going to be interesting to see how many "Stop Obama" signs are still in the ground and how long they stay there.